Thousands of Samsung workers took to the streets today outside the company’s main chip fab, demanding a greater share of AI profits. According to the police, some 30,000 people attended the rally in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, more than 30 miles south of Seoul, while organizers claimed that over 39,000 were present. Bloomberg reports that the Samsung labor union wants 15% of the company’s operating profit to be shared with chip-division workers and to remove the 50% bonus cap, as well as a 7% increase in pay. If this bonus is approved, that would amount to $27 billion (more than KRW 40 trillion), averaging more than $400,000 per worker.
However, it seems that this might be a bit too much for Samsung management. It made a counteroffer of a 10% allocation of operating profit to bonuses, a 6.2% wage increase, and additional benefits like preferential mortgage loans. The union has apparently rejected this proposal, pointing out that rival SK hynix has allocated 10% of its annual operating profit for performance bonuses and also removed the maximum bonus limit for its workers. The Samsung workers argue that their bonuses only equate to less than 30% of what comparable SK hynix workers get.
While Samsung has fallen behind its homegrown rival when it came to HBM3 dominance, it has since caught up after it became the first company to deliver next-generation HBM4 chips. “The company has spoken of crisis every year,” Samsung labor union head Choi Seung-ho told the publication. “But in the midst of those crises, it was not management that sustained Samsung Electronics. It was the employees here — the union members — who made the company the world’s leading semiconductor producer, who manufactured, improved processes, worked through the night, and raised yields.”
If the two parties fail to resolve the issue, the union says it will conduct an 18-day general strike starting May 21. This massive number of workers walking out of the posts will cause massive disruption for the company, with TradingKey estimating losses of around US$20.3 billion (around KRW 20 trillion). “Samsung will continue to make efforts to reach a swift agreement in wage negotiations,” a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.
